Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand leads fight against sexual assault in the military

May 25, 2013

Kirsten Gillibrand

Written by

Brian Tumulty

Gannett Washington Bureau

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s career

Education: Undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College; law degree from University of California-Los Angeles. 1991-2006: Practicing lawyer. 2006: Elected to Congress, unseating Republican incumbent John Sweeney in a Hudson Valley district. 2008: Re-elected to the House. 2009: Appointed to U.S. Senate by then-Gov. David Paterson after Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state. Others who were considered included Andrew Cuomo and Caroline Kennedy. 2009: The New York Times publishes a front-page article that reported Gillibrand was an attorney for Philip Morris in 1996 and helped defend the tobacco company against allegations that it lied about the existence of internal research on the health effects of smoking. 2010: Wins U.S. Senate seat for the first time in a special election. 2012: Re-elected to a full six-year term. Legislative victories: Introduced legislation in 2009 that eventually became law and repealed the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays. Instrumental in getting a ban on junk food in schools put into the Child Nutrition Act of 2010. Worked for a ban on drop-side cribs that were implicated in 32 infant deaths. Born: Dec. 9, 1966, in Albany. Home: Brunswick, an Albany suburb. Religion: Catholic. Family: Husband, Jonathan; two sons. Source: The Almanac of American Politics

The movie shows young women from small towns in Kentucky, Ohio and other parts of Middle America talking about enlisting in the military. Each says she was motivated by a family tradition, the search for a career or both. They have high aspirations.

But those aspirations turn into nightmares. The women also recall shocking incidents of being sexually assaulted — sometimes with bone-crushing violence or a gun held to their head — by fellow soldiers, commanders or training officers.

“That movie was so personally moving to me because it put a face on the crime,” said Gillibrand, D-N.Y. “You could see the victims and how their lives were so destroyed.”

Gillibrand’s decision to give sexual assaults in the military more attention from Congress was cemented when she was named chairwoman of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on personnel this year. After serving four years in the Senate and just over two years earlier in the House of Representatives, the post is the first congressional leadership position for Gillibrand, a 46-year-old attorney.

Her first hearing as chairwoman, held March 13, included tearful testimony from three victims of sexual assault in the military. Like the documentary, they brought real-life faces to the problem. Senators who attended the hearing expressed bipartisan outrage and vowed to act.

A recent spate of scandals, including two cases in which officers assigned to lead efforts to prevent sexual assault are accused of sexual misconduct themselves, has led members of Congress to propose several legislative fixes.

Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., have multiple cosponsors for a proposal calling on each branch of the military to appoint a Special Victims’ Counsel for sexual-assault victims and to prohibit training instructors from any sexual contact with recruits within 30 days after their training is completed.

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Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wants to establish an ombudsman to ensure sexual-assault cases in the military are pursued on a timely basis. He wants to create a restitution fund for victims that would encourage them to report their attackers. And he wants to allow written depositions to be used for filing initial charges so victims are required to testify in court only once.

“I also would impose mandatory punitive discharge where there is a general court-martial,” Blumenthal said. “Right now, somebody can be convicted and still remain in the service.”

Gillibrand’s own proposal was unveiled recently with a bipartisan group of senators and House members joining her. Her legislation would change the Uniform Code of Military Justice by letting military prosecutors — rather than commanders — decide whether to prosecute sexual-assault cases and other offenses punishable by at least a year in prison.

Prosecutors would have discretion to file all assault charges, whether sexually motivated or not. Commanders would retain authority over the filing of cases involving rules exclusive to the military, such as disobeying an order or being absent without leave.

Gillibrand’s bill has 16 Senate cosponsors, including three Republicans. House sponsors include two Republicans, Reps. Richard Hanna of New York and Dan Benishek of Michigan.

Tom Tarantino, chief policy officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, described sexual assaults as “a cancer in the military.”

“I hope we can change the culture of the military so that sexual violence is unthinkable, and then that bleeds over into society,” he said.

Tarantino isn’t surprised there’s widespread bipartisan support for Gillibrand’s bill and similar proposals.

“I think when someone comes up with a common-sense solution to a problem that is not political and that universally disgusts any honest man or woman, I think that’s what you are going to see,” Tarantino said. “This is an example of good policy work. It’s a smart solution. It’s a solution that should have happened years ago.”

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Anngela Vasser-Cooper, who heads the Women Veterans Association of the Hudson Valley, also described the legislation as “past due.”

“I take my hat off to the women who are pushing for this,” she said.

Many of the lawmakers who joined with Gillibrand on the proposal are women, including the chief Republican sponsor in the Senate, Susan Collins of Maine. A House cosponsor, freshman Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, is an Iraq War veteran who received help from Gillibrand raising campaign funds for last year’s primary.

Gillibrand’s goal is to attach her proposal and the other sexual-assault bills as amendments to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, set for committee consideration June 12.

The military sexual-assault legislation is only one priority for Gillibrand. The Senate Agriculture Committee member also has pursued dairy, specialty crop and childhood-nutrition issues. Gillibrand was a member of the House Agriculture Committee when she represented a Hudson Valley congressional district.

The Senate has begun floor debate on a new farm bill. Gillibrand is protesting proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, that could impact hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. Last year, the Senate passed a farm bill with $4.5 billion in SNAP cuts, but they were never implemented because the House failed to act. This year’s bill has $4.1 billion in cuts.

Gillibrand plans to make a moral argument against reducing the deficit by taking food away from families and children. It’s part of her belief in relying on what she describes as “core values.”

“That’s how we repealed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ ” she said. “That’s how we passed the 9/11 health bill and passed the Stock Act. To be effective in the Senate you have to start with a core common value.”

Though the Senate failed to enact gun-control legislation, Gillibrand still hopes her legislation to combat gun trafficking and straw firearms purchases will return for another floor vote. The proposal fell two votes short of the 60 needed for passage. Gillibrand has been talking to several Republicans about possible changes that could win their support.

Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator, ranks 67th in seniority in the Senate. More than three dozen members of her own party have more seniority. Recent retirement announcements from several long-serving Democratic senators including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg and Montana’s Max Baucus ensure she will continue to inch up the seniority ladder after the 2014 election.

Gillibrand won election last year to a full six-year Senate term with a record-setting 72.2 percent of the vote. That shows she’s popular with voters who didn’t know her well when then-Gov. David Paterson appointed her in January 2009 to fill the seat left vacant when Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state.

“The more you build relationships, the more you get to know your colleagues, I think the more effective you can be,” she said. “I think it does help you the longer you serve.”